Found Hops - Use 'em?

Cleaning up some brewing stuff last night - found two 1-oz packs of 8.7% AA Centennial pellets that somehow escaped the brew pot.

They're still vac-sealed in their original "nitrogen-flushed" packaging. They've been at room temperature.

Based on other stuff in the box (the bags don't have any date markings at all), I estimate they've been laying around for about 18 months.

Any thoughts about using these guys after all this time? What is the "shelf life" of a vac-sealed hop pack at room temp?

sfbayjay said:

Any thoughts about using these guys after all this time? What is the "shelf life" of a vac-sealed hop pack at room temp?

Click to expand...

Hard to estimate, really. I usually judge the age/freshness of my hops pellets by their color. Fresh hops pellets are usually a nice healthy shade of green. Yellowed hops pellets are a sign of age and degradation and should be avoided.

Storing hops in the cold is the best option and generally i'd say they're fine if you'll be brewing within six months of any "born on" date. 18 months is probably approaching the end of their usability IMHO, and definitely beyond the peak of freshness.

I think the aroma will tell you what you need to know. Centennials should have a strong aroma that is not off-putting in any way. Bad hops might smell like a well-aged strong cheese .

If they smell good, then package them up tight and use em quick.

They should be perfectly good if they're still in the nitrogen flushed bags, but they may have lost some of their AAs at RT. Stick to using them for late additions and you should be fine. As long as they smell good, you're good to go.

If you really want to try to calculate what % of the AA they might have lost, you can:

http://morebeer.com/brewingtechniques/library/backissues/issue2.1/garetz.html